The Successor
by Ridd1e
Summary: By the year 1969 Peggy Carter has everything she ever wanted. But she knows what a life of lies and espionage lead to and so she sets out to find a successor for her empire known as SHEILD. A mysterious young man named Nicholas Joseph Fury shows up at her door step and seems to be the perfect protégé. A story about Peggy Carter's time training the greatest spy who ever lived.
1. Chapter 1

The noise of ringing phones filled the air, the metallic clanging of bells seemed to resonate from those plastic boxes just to get on Agent Margret "Peggy" Carter's nerves. The odor of cigarette smoke hung in the air like a thick fog, it was impossible to breathe.

Peggy sat back in her chair, her feet up on her desk. She was alone in her office and alone with her thoughts. She had helped to start SHEILD several years ago to replace the SSR, and now she was at its head. She had always been the kind of person to always have a target in mind, a next great achievement on the horizon. But she wasn't really sure of what her future held any more. This might be her greatest achievement and so what did that leave for her future? Was this the best it would get for her?

Sure she had everything seemingly: a great job, a husband, a family, and finally the respect she deserved. But it was 1969 she wasn't the person that she used to be and part of her thought that maybe the old, more hands on Peggy might know what to do with her remaining years. Agents of espionage didn't tend to have much in terms of life expectancy; frankly she was amazed to have made it this far. She had dedicated her life to SHEILD, after she was gone, what would become of it?

A thought occurred, a good one, an answer even perhaps. Maybe that's what she needed. She pondered it for a moment; it _was_ the logical next step. It would be necessary eventually; sooner or later she would need a successor. Someone she could train and prepare for the ever-growing threat of spies and the suffocating sensation of mistrust that had spread across the world in recent years. The war raging inside of eastern boarders and at home wasn't the only thing that was cold, the trust and warmth and sense of brotherhood and unity that once possessed the world as she knew it was gone, no one trusted any one…though in her experience that was better.

There was a soft knock at the door. She could see a man's shadow through the fogged glass plate in the wooden door.

"Come in." She said absently, still lost in her thoughts of the future.

The nob turned and a young black man dressed in a three-piece suit entered her office. At just first glance Peggy already knew so many things about him. He was a fighter to start with; he held himself sternly with a defensive stance. He was young but he had seen conflict before. He hadn't grown up easily, but what young black men had during the civil rights movement? She aged him to be around 17 or 18, a man in most circles, and he saw himself that way, but she could tell that there was boyishness to him that he kept well hidden. He was dressed formally in his suit, but it was minimalistic just like him, he kept secrets that was for sure. He interested Peggy immediately.

She slid her feet off of her desk, and leaned forward in her office chair, waiting for the young man sit down.

Peggy awaited his voice; when she heard none she became infinitely more intrigued by his prospects. The first rule of an interrogation was that if you spoke first, you had already lost. He was playing by those same rules, which said to Peggy that he wasn't any normal young man.

She leaned back in her chair, interested to see how long he could wait to be spoken to. She sipped from the mug of tea on her desk, never breaking eye contact with him. His expression was still and motionless, but that boyishness what Peggy had seen before was becoming more evident. He was uncomfortable with this situation, as if he had been told what to do by someone else but had never done it before-like a medical student reading about a surgery and then expected to preform it. She could outlast him easily, that she knew. Simply for the fun of it she settled herself in, flashed the man a smile and broke his eye contact. _Lets see how long he'll last if he things that he has been forgotten and ignored _she thought to herself. She opened a file on her desk, the one that she was meant to be looking over before a mission into the Soviet Union could be launched in the following days.

She didn't like to waste time and she would almost always rather be doing something than sitting around and reading about it, but in her role was founder and leader of SHEILD she found herself doing quite a lot of both so this was nothing new.

She began to hum herself a jazzy tune that she had heard on the radio that morning, and tapped her foot bobbing her head in time with the beats, she hoped that her childishness would evoke a reaction from the man. It all felt a bit like a fun game. She briefly looked up, from behind the folder to see the boy looking down, his posture was slightly hunched now and he seemed to be rethinking his tactics and a bead of sweet was rolling down his face. He was panicking just slightly but enough to be showing the tell tale symptoms.

She picked up her fountain pen and signed her name to the document agreeing to the insurgency. She admired her own penmanship in her wasted time, she always liked the loops and bumps that her writing had, and it looked suave and elegant. The handwritings that she could imitate were usually not as glamorous, because she was usually plagiarizing the signatures of men who tended to sway from "pretty" writing.

The young boy briefly cleared his thought, and that's when Peggy knew she had won. She looked at him and smile sideways; it was truly a valiant effort.

"M-Ms. Carter." He said, trying to be firm despite his discomfort.

"Yes?" She responded amused that he finally would speak

"I think that I could be of use to you and your organization."

"You do?" She asked casually

"Yes Ma'am."

"Do you know who we are?"

"The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." He confirmed.

"So what do you think of us?" She asked

"I think someone really wanted your acronym to spell out SHEILD."

Peggy smiled, briefly recalling a memory of Red, White and Blue metal.

"As it turns out, someone did."

He nodded.

"What's your name?" She said flatly, really more of a statement than a question.

"Nicholas Joseph Fury." He said

"That's a good name son," She said realizing that this kid could have what it takes to be a truly great spy, maybe even the answer to her ponderings. "Why don't I show you around."


	2. Chapter 2

She led Nicholas out of her office and into the hall. The wooden panels under their feet creaked as they walked over them. They were old boards, this was an old building, and it was nothing new. The crème walls were blank, the ceilings held only flickering industrial lights. The entire set up was inside of a block of city business apartments sealed off for their use, the roof was zoned for helicopter landing and the building extended down underground into the sewers. It was also designed to be equidistant to the airport and the train station in case a need arose to evacuate. It was an impressive set up, but Peggy truly hoped that one day it would be so much more. It still used outdated technology, the only reason that SHEILD functioned as smoothly as it did was because of its agents. Peggy, Howard and Chester Philips—the founders of the institution—had all hand picked and trained them.

Peggy missed the days when she got to be more hands on, the missions and the training and the fighting tooth and nail had all seemed dirty and a means to an end at the time, but she now looked back on her time nostalgically. Her duties nowadays were more or less what they used to be at the SSR, she answered phones and doing paper work. The bureaucracy of her job was mind numbing but important none-the-less, without her this place wouldn't exist much less function efficiently.

"Where are we going?" Nicholas asked her as she hurried through the hall

"To the heart and soul of this place." She told him just as they rounded the corner to the bullpen.

Agents in the room were bustling about, some darting out of the room to retrieve files and others to add things to case files and boards that they were already working on. Just as they entered a man with slicked back black hair, thick black square glasses and a navy suit called out to Peggy:

"Hey chief!" He yelled across the busy office area

Peggy stopped in her tracks. "Yes, what is it Agent Carlson?"

"Um, well," he held up a manila folder with papers inside and pointed to a mapped diagram of the Eastern Soviet Union "We were working on insurgency into the USSR for Project Czerkov, and we cant find a way into the north-eastern front without alerting stationed troops at out posts 34 and 36."

Peggy studied the diagram for a moment. "Hmm yes I do believe I see your dilemma," she pondered for a moment and then pointed to a spot on the map "What if you break your troops into 2 teams of 4 instead of 1 teams of 8, then send them over the wall at intervals? You could position them to infiltrate at each guard change. Its not a time sensitive mission you can wait them out."

The man broke into an uneasy smile. "Of course," he chuckled nervously "Thanks chief."

Peggy nodded and continued on with Nicholas by her side. She walked until they were out of everyone's way so that she could speak to him without interrupting her agents.

"This is the center of operations," she introduced "This is where most of the agents work and plan, the filing room is just down the hall and there are sound proof booths and rooms in each wall on the right for sensitive meetings."

She motioned towards glass doors on the right wall, inside of which some agents seemed to be arguing, but the glass was fogged and hard to see through.

"What if a sniper tried to shoot through one of your windows?" Nicholas asked gesturing to the undressed windows on each wall.

"I suppose they would find that every window in the building is completely bullet proof," She bragged just a little "A newer technology we adapted from the military, who got it from mobsters in the 30's and 40's, our scientists made it even stronger and lighter with fiberglass polymers."

Nicholas was silent as he looked around the room in awe. His eyes moved intelligently as if he were studying the room and learning every detail from memory.

"This place is…" he couldn't seem to find the right word for what this place was exactly. "Incredible."

Peggy felt a small bubble of pride in her chest. "Yes I suppose it is isn't it." Peggy caught herself a moment from falling into vanity again and cleared her throat. "Um anyways we'd better get a move on."

She hurried the boy along with her around of the bullpen and through a few science labs and past a hallway of interrogation rooms.

"Why all of the labs and technicians?" Nicholas asked

"SHEILD was founded in the wake of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, its main purpose was to oppose enemy organizations, and combat advanced weaponry."

"What kind of enemies?"

"A group of Nazi supporters primarily, but to say any more would be classified."

"Well what do you mean advanced weaponry?" He asked with growing anticipation "Like bombs and stuff?"

"Sort of," she said solemnly "Many weapons were created during World War Two that still pose a threat, some are bombs and others…are not."

Peggy straightened her shoulders, and marched on.

"Anyways lets continue you should see the underground."

The boy's eyes opened with excitement, his stoic expressions from earlier seemed to be a thing of the past, as he grew more and more interested with each moment.

Thinking about what that change meant caused Peggy to stop in her tracks immediately, so that he almost ran into her back. She turned and faced Nicholas, bending slightly so that her eyes made contact with his.

"Nicholas." She said

"I prefer Nick." He corrected

"Fine then, Nick," She adjusted "I do need to make something exceedingly clear."

"What?"

"I know that what you are seeing feels like a movie or a comic book but its not," she said seriously "These are real people not characters in an adventure book, I don't want you to take the wrong thing away from this experience. These people are all very dedicated, this work isn't always fun or safe, and its dangerous and scary and half the time you aren't sure if you are going to make it to see tomorrow or not. I don't want you to come in here and think that this line of work is anything more or less than it is, its espionage and that entails a lot of incalculable variables."

"Not a comic book," he repeated sadly but honestly, like he was accepting the truth whether he wanted to or not, Peggy was definitely sure that Nick wasn't any normal teenager. "So no superheroes then to save the day I'm guessing?"

Peggy felt herself smile. "I wouldn't say that. There are superheroes, just not the ones you know in capes and tights. The people that will be heroes in this world are every day people who truly believe in freedom and choice, they could be a girl from down the street who plays jump rope, the milk man who comes every Saturday morning or…just some skinny kid from Brooklyn trying to prove himself."

Nick nodded; he was starting to understand.

"Come on Nick," Peggy said ushering the boy into a rickety elevator at the end of the hallway. They stood in silence as the door closed with a heavy _clunk_.

Gears and pulleys outside the compartment whirred and grinded so much that the inside walls vibrated and it only stopped once the elevator ceased moving and it opened its doors revealing the basement.

Nick stepped out, mouth gapping at the expansive underground.

"What do you think?" Peggy asked

"What do I think?!" He said breathlessly "I think it's amazing, I think I'll never forget one moment of this for my entire li-"

He was going to say more, but he felt something cold and hard press up against the back of his skull.

"That's a Walther PPK by the way," said Peggy's Voice "In case you were thinking about running, don't. I'm a much better shot than I look. I think its time you answer some of my questions don't you?"


	3. Chapter 3

The hard metal pressed against Nick Fury's head felt colder with each moment, a lot like his blood. He felt himself physically shaking in fear. He couldn't quite seem to control his muscles but he sucked in a puff of air and in one swift motion he spun himself around hoping to get away from the gunpoint. Agent Carter was an older woman, surly his youth gave him the advantage physically.

That was the first and last time he ever thought that.

As he launched himself into the spiral, Peggy's arm shot forward and coiled around his bicep holding him with a steady grip. He tried to jerk away, but her tight grasp was iron clad.

He was now face to face with the SHEILD Agent that he had clearly underestimated. Her brown eyes eyed him steely, they were cold and calm and calculating like a machine. She pulled his arm in, and pressed the gun face to his forehead this time.

"Question time?" she prompted

He felt a quiver run through his limbs and he shook his head yes with his full anxiety showing.

"Who are you," She asked, "I mean really."

"I told you, Nicholas Joseph Fury," He was still shaking and he could hear it in his own voice "I didn't lie about that."

"So you did lie about something then?"

He said nothing.

"How did you find out about this place?" She said tightening her grip around his arm

He grunted in pain, her clutch was stifling his blood flow. Who was this woman?

"Rumors." He grunted out between clenched teeth.

"Rumors?" She repeated quizzically

"Yeah there are rumors on the streets about this place; a secret government agency hidden here in New York. Operating beneath out noses. They said you were just an urban legend, a ghost story. But you are real, I knew it."

Peggy could here truth in his words, but she still had questions.

"How did you find us?"

"I- I have very particular skills, you aren't that well hidden." He said with growing indignation. He was growing bolder; he wasn't as scared any more.

"Skills," Peggy repeated "You found a top secret government agency at the age of what 18? Off of some rumors you had heard in the streets?"

He nodded.

Peggy had to admit, she was increasingly impressed. It reminded her of something she might have done as a child herself.

"How did you get in though, this place is maximum security."

He smiled a little, some smugness appearing in his eyes and in his sly smile.

"I've been watching you for months now, it wasn't long before I found a flaw in your system."

Peggy scoffed "Alright then what is this glaring flaw that we all seem to have over looked?"

"You all still operate under the assumption that no one knows where you are, the actually security in here isn't anything special. I pick pocketed an agent of yours for an ID badge and made a replica. That's all it takes to gain access."

"Give it to me." She ordered

He pinched his eyes together in a rebellious glare. "Why should I?"

Peggy felt her eyes drift over to the gun ranges in the corner of the basement. She shoved him towards them and pressed her heeled shoe into the back on his knee forcing him to the ground. He muttered a bit, but fell to his knees nonetheless. Without a word she loaded her gun with one fluid motion and fired three shots at the target 30 yards away. The recoil didn't seem to faze her at neither did the noise, because she didn't wince or so much as blink once. With each loud blast, Nick flinched. If had grown up in New York during these dangerous times, he knew far too much about gunfire.

The target slid on a conveyer belt towards Peggy and she unclipped the paper showing one hole through the forehead, one through the heart and the other through the neck into what must have been the carotid artery.

Seeing these perfect shots Nick swallowed hard again asking himself who was this woman? She wasn't any normal person that's for sure; no one could shoot like that.

"That's why." She said holding out her hand in demand of his counterfeited ID Card.

He scrambled to open his pockets and pull it out for her.

He placed the tan card in her hand, pulling away incase she tried to grab his wrist. He was careful like that, he didn't make unnecessary moves; everything he did was calculated. He had learned to think ahead, the neighborhoods where he lived weren't nice but they had taught him a lot about being independent.

She examined the card with hard eyes. Nick could usually read people. It was one of the skills that he possessed, usually running into strangers on the streets or seeing people on television, he could tell if they were lying or if they were nervous. With one look he could read an entire person's mind and put together the facts of their past. But this woman was a total blank; her body language said nothing to him, as if it used a different language all together.

"Its impeccable." She finally said with an air of breathiness "Every little detail correct. It's the same shade, font and size. The minutiae points are all accurate too; there isn't a mistake on it. I feel I should congratulate you on your work, had you not broken into my facility with it."

"How did you figure it out any way?" Nick asked still on his knees. He was used to being the smartest guy in the room, but he knew with this woman he never would be.

"Oh please you show up at my office without any papers or an appointment-total amateur mistake. Besides you were too curious, you asked too many questions, only people with something to hide do that. You intrigue me Nick, you have a lot of potential."

He felt himself shrink away a little. "Potential for what?"

She didn't answer. Instead she looked down at her gun. She had called it a Walther PPK, it was a jet-black beauty too, dangerous and deadly.

"Can you shoot?"

She lessened the pressure on his leg so that he could stand. He rose to his feet. She handed him the gun and pointed to the target.

He fired off five shots. He couldn't help but close his eyes as he shot, the power in his hands felt terrifying. He had seen many good lives taken by weapons like these, but he had also seen them saves just as many lives, so he both feared and respected them.

The target began to move in for inspection along the belt. It arrived and Peggy removed it from the clasps.

The holes were unevenly spaced, but they all hit the target. It would have done some serious damage, but it might not have killed.

She looked at them and then him.

"Is this the first time you've held a gun?"

He shook his head no.

"Is this the first time you've fired a gun?"

He nodded this time.

"You winced." She identified

"What?" 

"These shots show hesitation, you recoiled and backed away. These aren't kill shots."

"No."

"They could be, do you want them to be?" she asked suddenly serious again "Do you want to kill the bad guys?"

He thought for a moment. It was a test.

"No," he said finally "I just want people to be safe."

"And if that means pulling the trigger?"

"I'd do it." He said with sudden realization that he would, and that he now knew that he would.

"Then you should at least be good at it."

He looked back at he and met her eyes. She reloaded the gun with a cartridge from her jacket pocket. She pulled back and loaded the weapon before placing it in his hands.

She put her hand on his shoulder, straightening is back and pressing his shoulders back. She moved a finger to his chin and angled his chin up.

"Strengthen your stance," She ordered "Move your feet apart for balance."

He did as she said, and then pressed the trigger five times. Feeling he recoil but straying from the fear. _A means to an end_ he though, that's all this was. But he knew in his heart that it was more than that.

"Close one eye," she instructed, "You only need one eye to shoot anyways, and it'll give you better aim."

He fired again.

"Better," She said realizing that this kid had more potential than she had even initially realized. "Now again."

He followed the order, and fired again.


End file.
